March 2016

My youngest is a mover and a shaker. If homeschool had yearbooks he'd be voted as most likely to take things apart or maybe most likely to be hanging upside-down from a tree branch. When he learned to read, it was with his legs flopped over the back of the couch and the rest of him twisted sideways to see the book I was sharing with him. Usually his antics make me laugh. It's the blessing of being the baby in the family I guess. This time of year though, he tends to get himself riled up to the point of driving his teenage sisters a little batty. More often than I care to remember someone is shrieking at him.... and usually for good reason. Sometimes I ignore it and let them settle it themselves.... sometimes I get involved and play mediator.... other times the only answer is to give the girls some quiet time and take the boy outside. I tell my mom he's like a puppy, he needs to be run! (These are literally my father's words coming out of my mouth!)

So run we do. Over the creek and through the forest. The tables turned with him on a mission and me looking at every little thing. He wants to make it to the water. Stomp over the bridge. Chase the dog. Throw sticks through the last bits of ice. Move, move, move. I'm bumbling behind, wondering if those last shrooms were turkey tails or not. And talk! He talks the whole time. Rarely needing an answer from me, but more so just needing to voice all the things in his little mind. I listen to talk about Legos, his recent obsession of the Simpsons (even though he's never seen an episode), his confusion about why people litter, and his wondering about fairies in the woods.

These days it's a mix of becoming for him. I see him figuring out how he fits in this new world of being a big kid. Flitting back and forth between the two as his siblings did before him, as all kids tend to do around this age. I remember our rock days, and I hang onto these last bits of little as much as I can. The over exuberant hugs, the magic, the messes, his rare need for help, his nightly snuggle under my arm while I attempt to knit.... all of it.

There's an ebb and flow of busy-ness these days. I recently found my plate to be too full and had to let some things go. It's easy to bite off more than I can chew... especially when really wonderful things come available. But the older I get, the more I realize I need down time and days that have no plans at all to balance the busy ones. It's tricky though....

Art class started again the beginning of March. Once a week my studio is filled with 8 extra girls along with my own. I feel pretty lucky to hang out with these super cool young ladies and do my best to find art projects to inspire them. This next session is 12 weeks long and we've decided (the girls & I, that is) to hold a little art show at the end to share with their families. So I'll be compiling about half of our art over the next 2 months and then displaying it all at the end of May. I'll share some bits and pieces as we go along.

The chicks are growing! The first picture is from last week and the second from today. It happens so quickly! I can't believe it's been a week since our little one hatched out and we purchased a few friends to join her. If luck is in our favor there are at least 8 hens in the little flock of ten we have inside. We know there is one rooster for sure, and two of our chicks were straight run so it's a wait and see sort of thing. We're hoping if one of the Swedish Flowers is a rooster we can take him up to Grandpa's farm. This year we chose Cream Legbars, Swedish Flowers, Cuckoo Marans & Blue Cochins to join the flock. I must admit we really get excited about having different types of chickens in our flock. We purchased ours locally, but I linked to photos if you would like to see them. We bought a huge galvanized tub as a brooder this year, Joe said he was tired of buying plastic totes, and that at least we could use it as our future bath tub!! It sure is a nice place for the little peeps to hang out for now. (yes, I quite enjoy having my farm critters in the living room for now - ask me in a month and I might have a different opinion.)

I redesigned our tea labels this week. We got new bags with windows and I had to tweak everything a bit to make it all fit. I'm happy with the new look! I also got a heat gun and shrink labels for the salves & tinctures. That's a bit of a learning curve! It sure makes everything look more professional. I *think* I have two wholesale accounts in the works (eek!), so it's a must to have things sealed properly. And markets! I just signed us up for a monthly farmer's market throughout the summer. Things are filling up, and I'm trying to keep balance in planning out summer dates.... making sure there are still lots of days for lounging in hammocks and heading to our favorite beach spot. The important stuff you know.....

Knitting is calling.... trying to sneak in a few rows on the shawl before my pillow is calling.

We've been working on a HUGE update in the shop..... and we're really excited to share some new goodies with you:

Introducing Joe's beautiful pottery pieces, Sweetbrier Mud! We listed several feather spoon rests and honey pots. His pottery pieces are made from earthenware clay, glazed with lead-free food safe glaze and fired in small batches. The glazes are all beautiful earthy tones and you really have to take a peek at his honey pots and how we found the perfect stamp for them. Several more pieces are in the shop.

Our cold process natural soap is handcrafted in small batches using organic and responsibly harvested oils, infused with botanical ingredients that are locally sourced whenever possible, and finished with practitioner quality essential oils - we never use any artificial colors or scents and ALL of our soap is palm free.

Dream Salve - this heavenly scented salve is infused with lavender, rose, geranium, mugwort and a bit of magic. These herbs promote relaxation and mugwort is known for its dream powers. Sleep sound and dream well....

I think most of you might not even notice what I did. For any of you who got confused and lost in the shuffle of this week's technology reorganization, I do apologize.

We've been in the process of creating a storefront for our business. In the midst of all of it and moving the store to the main page we realized the blog link for Sweetbrier Farms wasn't going to work any longer. I was trying to figure out my options for keeping the Sweetbrier name all tied together on websites when Joe finally said - Why don't you just move back to Gypsy Forest. I wasn't sure about the idea at first..... even though I hadn't blogged much at Sweetbrier, I was worried it would just make a big confusing mess of links. But then he said something else - I feel like you lost our story when you moved. I miss wandering through the old stuff, of when the kids were little. Can't you just change the name of the blog but keep it all in one place? That man of mine is smart. So while there will be a few broken links in the internet galaxy - I decided they were worth it and he was right (When he reads this tonight he's going to make a big deal out of me telling him he was right. Sometimes he even writes it on the calendar, it's seriously ridiculous you guys.)

So our new storefront will live at sweetbrierfarms.com and our blog will live here at the old gypsyforest.com address.

The two addresses also make it much easier for readers to subscribe to our blog feed. (bonus! he didn't even know part that but I'll give him credit there too.)

I know, I know. I made a little mess. But when you come to think of it, We have been here in Massachusetts for 3 years, which means it's about time to move! Maybe all this moving of online homes will count and our hopes of staying here longer with such close proximity to the farm will work out. A girl can hope.

I've been hard at work getting the store together - if you want to take a peek and let me know what you think I would be ever so grateful for your thoughts. (and check out our new Super Salve labels while you're there - we love them!!)

The kids want me to tell you there is far more important news going on - it involves baby chickens. I'm saving the bulk of the details for a whole other post, but I'll leave this right here for you.

You just fell out of your chair with cuteness overload, right? I know. It's insane.